COLUMBIANA, Alabama -- Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry
this morning expressed ongoing concerns about an anticipated budget shortfall, a
reduction in services and resulting risks to the public during a meeting with commissioners
this morning.

Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry is warning about a budget shortfall this year without commission intervention.

Figures provided at the meeting showed Curry's agency
faces a nearly $378,000 budget shortfall from salaries and related costs. He wanted to show commissioners the department's actions "and what
we're not doing any more, and that's the part that really bothers me," he said.

"How long we can continue that is good question. We're
not just saying we want this because we want it. We're saying we're required by
law to provide a lot of these services," he said. "We have to do these things. We're
expected to ferret out crime. We're expected to protect you in the course of your
business."

Commissioners Lindsey Allison, Corley Ellis and Jon
Parker stayed after the board's regular meeting this morning for the sheriff's
presentation on his mid-year budget report at the county administrative
building in Columbiana.

"We're going to do the best we can. We're going to try to
come in under budget," Curry said. "We're going to do the best we can to
generate all the revenue we can, but we don't have enough guards in the jail. I
can't operate an overcrowded, dangerous jail for the sheer sake of money."

Commissioners listened and questioned some reasons for
the sheriff's budget issues but took no action. "We didn't get notice of this
thing until Friday," Allison told the sheriff. "We'll do what we can to keep
the dialogue going."

Sheriff's Capt. Ken Burchfield provided an overview of
the department's administrative costs that included estimated shortfalls that
could result due to rising fixed costs and shrinking discretionary funding to
cover unanticipated costs.

Salaries continue to impact the department's budget
accounting for 88 percent of costs, up from roughly 80 percent four years ago.
Burchfield noted discrepancies between funding levels and budgeted amounts of $340,000
from salary figures alone, while combined budgets looking at retirement, health
insurance and other worker costs show the $378,000 shortfall.

Comparing the last fiscal year's total salary costs
compared to the approved amount in the current spending plan shows a shortfall
of $295,000.

"The point is they all are saying that those lines are
underfunded," Burchfield said. "Here's what that means: We don't have enough
discretionary money to say we can cover that."

Discretionary revenue has dropped $366,000 since 2008 for
the department, according to figures provided by Burchfield. The department has
cut overtime and services that deputies could have done with extra hours such
as repeated attempts for civil paperwork service and picking up prisoners from
out of county, he said.

Fuel costs remain another concern for the department with
spending exceeding budget $60,000 last year and $244,000 the year before,
according to figures.

"We took the steps to reduce the driving, parking the
cars, we saved some money," Burchfield said. "When these lines are not funded
it means the money has to come from somewhere ... it affects services."

The department does not have a sex offender unit to monitor
and track registration of criminals and their compliance with laws, Burchfield
said. Also, the department lacks personnel to primarily serve arrest warrants
that total more than 10,000.

"We don't have any deputies who are responsible for
serving warrants all day, every day," he said.

Traffic enforcement, community relations programs such as
helping seniors and a dedicated criminal analyst unit are lacking as well. Even
the department's two dedicated school resource officers are in jeopardy.

"We're at two, there may not be two next year,"
Burchfield said. "Everything is on the board right now when it comes to us making
budget."